


The Wild Rose

by DarkCoffeeWitch



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Erotica, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:28:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24383566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkCoffeeWitch/pseuds/DarkCoffeeWitch
Summary: Nineteen year old Rose Wilder Montgomery has pursued her goals singlemindedly. Engaged to Jasper Lafontaine, the heir of a wealthy family, Rose knows she will live a comfortable life, including owning and raising her own stable of horses. Then she meets a handsome stranger (Alejandro Cortez--OC @tumadrekat) who turns her ideas about herself and her desires upside down.
Kudos: 4





	The Wild Rose

Rose watched Dandy as he trotted around her on the longe line, his head bobbing down and his left hip hitching up every time his left hind hoof came down. The palomino gelding, a gift from her father on her eighth birthday, seemed relieved to stop when his mistress said, “Whoa, whoa, sweet boy. That’s enough.”

Her father, rubbing his beard, went to the gelding’s hindquarters as Rose gathered the longe line and held Dandy’s head, murmuring to him. Chester ran his hand down the gelding’s leg, feeling for heat and swelling, then lifted his hoof to check for abscesses or bruising. He put Dandy’s foot back down and gave the gelding an affectionate pat on his dappled golden rump.

“Honeybee, I believe Dandy’s halcyon days are behind him,” her father said. “I don’t think the occasional Sunday ride will hurt him, but we should start looking for another horse.”

Dandy flicked his ear at Rose as she hugged him and put her nose to his neck, breathing in the warm musk of his scent. She felt her father place his large hand on her shoulder, “Come now, he’ll enjoy retirement. Dandy’s not a young horse anymore, but, he should still be around to give my first grandchild a ride.”

“Papa!” Rose flung a look of exasperation at him, “Jasper has not even proposed to me, yet.”

“Not yet, no,” agreed her father, the corners of his eyes gathering into creases as his smile fought to emerge from the wilderness of his beard. He drew out the word “yet” in such a drawl that Rose narrowed her eyes and turned to face him with her fists resting on her slim hips. Though he had always weathered her squalls of temper with equanimity, she noticed that he seemed particularly impervious to her present glare. In fact, he was positively Cheshire. She half expected him to disappear and leave his smile floating about the corral like a macabre butterfly.

The answer presented itself to her with the abruptness of a Junebug ricocheting off an unsuspecting victim’s forehead. “Papa, did he ask you for permission to marry me?”

Her father attempted to wipe the smile from his face by stroking his beard and saying from behind his hand, “I am sworn to silence”, confirming he had something to be sworn to silence over and giving Rose the answer to her question.

She whooped, dropped the longe line, and hugged her father. Dandy, who had spent years inuring himself to the sometimes erratic antics of his rider, only took the opportunity to rest his sore leg by standing in the hipshot sleepy-eyed manner of a horse that has seen nearly everything and refuses to waste energy by being surprised at humans anymore. Chester forebore her exuberancy, engulfing her in a hug that smelled of tobacco smoke, before pushing her gently towards the house.

“Go. Speak to your mother. She’s as pleased as the cat who ate the canary,” he said with a low chuckle. “I’ll see to Dandy.”

Rose Wilder Montgomery, nineteen years old and convinced that the best part of life was spent on the back of a horse, hardly cared who she married as long as he kept a large stable and had the means to provide for it. While Rose’s mother might not have approved of the reasons behind her daughter’s criteria for choosing Jasper Lafontaine, Leighanne Montgomery hardly cared who Rose married as long as he was wealthy and would provide for her, thereby satisfactorily closing an unspoken circle of expectations on both of their parts and proving that Rose had inherited not only her mother’s fiery hair but also an aggrandized definition of sufficiency and who could provide her with it.

“I can see your father told you about Jasper,” her mother said as Rose entered the kitchen. “After he promised Jasper that he wouldn’t say a word.”

Rose, always ready to defend her father, said, “Papa didn’t tell me. I guessed.”

“Of course.”

“You know he’s terrible at keeping secrets,” Rose added.

“I know. He told me once that women had hearts made to keep secrets,” Leighanne turned to open a cupboard. She pulled a bottle of whiskey down and set it on the table. “Sit down.”

As Rose pulled out a chair and sat, her mother found two shot glasses. She sat across from her daughter and pulled the cork from the bottle. She filled both glasses to the brim. 

“Take it,” she said as she brought her own shot glass to her lips, waited for Rose to lift hers. “Together.”

Mother and daughter threw back their shots. Leighanne looked on with amusement as Rose coughed.

“What about men?” Rose said when she could speak.

“What?”

“You said papa told you that women’s hearts are for secrets. Well, what are men’s hearts made for?” 

Leighanne tapped her glass against the table while she thought. 

“Vengeance,” she said finally. She poured herself another shot, drank it in a quick swallow, then added with a small smile, “And lust.”

*********

Rose smiled graciously as Jasper helped her out of his buggy, his gloved hand steadying her as she sought the step hidden from her sight by the volumes of pale blue skirts, petticoats, and bustle that made her feel like an ambulatory handbell. Though she knew that too much sun would make her freckles more robust, she wore no hat or bonnet, knowing that her vibrant hair looked its best in the warm summer sunlight. She knew the two of them made a striking pair: Rose with her petite frame and tumbling waves of red hair, and Jasper with his lithe horseman’s build and eyes of Lafontaine blue. She allowed him to tuck her hand into the crook of his arm and guide her into the tumult of the Valentine horse fair. Though she tried to keep her attention on Jasper, to give the appropriate responses to his conversation, the sight of so many horses was an immediate siren’s call. 

The horses neighed and fidgeted, even the most well trained of the saddle horses responding to the hullabaloo around them with tail flicks, stomping hooves, and wide eyes. The smells of warm hay and fresh manure wafted on the slight breeze, and the calls of men selling and buying horses competed with the strident whinnies of horses and the jingle of tack. 

She gave Jasper a sidelong glance. He was a handsome gifted horseman who appreciated her knowledge of the animals. He had stolen kisses on their Saturday buggy rides, something she had allowed out of curiosity, finding his lips warm and pleasing enough, though his moustache prickled her. When he asked her to marry him, she felt no qualms about accepting. 

“Your father told me about Dandy,” said Jasper, covering her hand with his own. 

“Yes, we’re retiring him.” She put on her prettiest sad face, gazing up at him through her lashes. 

“Darling, I’d like to buy you a new horse. As an engagement gift.” He smiled down at her, reveling in both his benevolence and the expectation of her delight. 

“Oh, Jasper, really? I hardly know what to say, I am so happy,” she put both hands on his arm and went up on tiptoe to place a kiss on his cheek. 

“I cherish you, Rose,” he said, “And though the entire Sapphire stable will soon be at your disposal, I cannot have you discontent during our engagement.”

Not for the first time, she thought he might know her heart better than she suspected. Her smile faltered for a moment, but she turned away before he could read her expression, exclaiming, “There, Jasper, look at that beautiful blood bay. And the grey next to him!”

She left him to follow in the wake of her skirts and enthusiasm as she wove through the crowd to a picket line of gleaming horses. One in particular, a paint gelding with a dappled grey and white tobiano coat, caught her attention. When she scratched his forehead where the hairs met in a whorl underneath his forelock, he gave a deep sigh of enjoyment and leaned his head into her hand. She felt the presence of someone behind her, and, assuming that Jasper had joined her, she looked over her shoulder with a wide smile for him, only to be surprised when it was not Jasper, but a man older than Jasper by many years. In his youth, she guessed, his hair must have been a deep gold, but now it was lightened by strands of silver throughout, as was his neatly trimmed beard. A long healed scar that raked over the right side of his face gave him the look of an unrepentant rogue, and the gunbelt and revolvers he wore supported her supposition, though the quality and cut of his clothing suggested that he was a gentleman.

“He seems to have chosen you,” the man said, “Miss--?”

“Rose Montgomery,” she replied, turning to face him fully. A pleasant heat radiated upward from her center when he took her hand and kissed the top of it, and she wondered what his lips might feel like on other parts of her body. The sudden ribald turn of her mind took Rose by surprise. The man’s pale eyes seem to catch her thoughts--the smile he gave her was slow and wicked. She felt a hot, tingling flush creep across her face.

“You have an excellent eye for horseflesh, Miss Montgomery” he said as he released her hand. “Unfortunately, I just bought this gelding.”

“Oh,” she said, remembering the horse. A swell of disappointment rose in her breast, but good manners--and the notion that her fiance might soon be near enough to record her behavior in the repository of his mind where he stored his accumulated knowledge of her--dictated that she respond graciously, “Congratulations on your purchase, Mr.--?”

“Cortez.” He stepped closer to her, “Was your heart set upon this gelding, Miss Montgomery?”

“I only just saw him, Mr. Cortez.”

“Sometimes, a moment is all it takes to know that something is meant for you.”

Again, the heat lashed through her.

“You look like a woman unaccustomed to disappointment,” said Cortez, “No matter what polite words you say.”

“You presume an incredible amount of familiarity with my expectations,” said Rose, her voice low.

“I would like to become more familiar with you and your… expectations,” he drawled, an insouciant half smile flirting around his lips as his pale eyes flicked up and down her body like a tongue of lightning, leaving her nerves crackling.

“Rose,” Jasper’s voice was a clarion as he pushed his way through the crowds, his eyes narrowed and focused upon the two of them. Another spool of disappointment unwound in her stomach as she watched him approach. 

“Your beau?” asked Cortez.

“My fiance.”

“Of course,” chuckled Cortez. “I’ll sell the gelding to you for a kiss, Miss Montgomery.”

She gaped at him, only remembering to shut her mouth when her mother’s voice proclaimed from the depths of her memory, “Close your mouth or you’ll catch flies, Rose.”

“Now?” The word shocked her as it came out of her mouth. She had intended to say no. What was wrong with her? When had she taken leave of her senses?

Cortez’s eyes went to her lips before he looked into her grey green eyes, “As much as I would enjoy sowing the seeds of chaos, I think not. I’ll be at the Saints Hotel tonight, room 2C.”

Then Jasper was in front of them, his bright blue eyes searching her face and his hand taking hers like a shackle. “Mine” that hand said to Cortez, she knew.

“Mr. Cortez has just purchased this gelding,” she found herself speaking in a pleasant conversational tone, “And I was congratulating him on his luck in finding the animal before I did.”

“My Rose has a quick eye for horses,” said Jasper. “If she wanted this Foxtrotter then you can be sure that he is the best horse here.”

“Yes, she seems adept at recognizing quality,” agreed Cortez. Another blush climbed into her cheeks though she could not have explained why.

“Jasper, darling, I feel that the heat is beginning to overwhelm me,” she said, hating the simpering tone that rang subtly false in a way that she was sure Cortez could hear. 

“Mr. Cortez, I’m afraid that my fiance and I must take our leave. I commend your successful purchase,” Jasper said, tipping his hat at the man before putting Rose’s hand on his arm and leading her away. As she passed close to Cortez, she gave him a nearly imperceptible nod.

*********

The simplest way to attain her goal was to play the part of a weakly constitutioned woman. She had seen the symptoms and effects of heat exhaustion one summer when her father insisted on putting up all the hay on his own after their farmhand took ill with a persistent case of intestinal distress brought on by imbibing a particularly questionable jug of moonshine. Truthfully, it was not a difficult ruse to adopt: her whalebone corset restricted her breathing awfully, and the unaccustomed layers of clothing--she usually wore culottes and a light cotton shirt for riding--made sweat drip and pool on her back. When she asked Jasper to take a pair of rooms at the Saint for the night, he readily agreed, paying not only an exorbitant fee for the rooms since the hotel had been booked full but also having to pay the displaced customers to find less hospitable accommodations elsewhere. 

Jasper brought her to her room, gave her a courtly kiss at the door, and said, “I will have a dressing gown and a light dinner sent to your room, and the hotelier will have a cool bath drawn for your, darling.”

“Thank you, Jasper,” she smiled wanly. “I apologize for ruining our afternoon plans.”

“Nonsense, Rose,” replied Jasper, “Rest and recover. I shall spend the evening endeavoring to enjoy myself without your company.”

“A challenge that I am sure you are the equal of,” laughed Rose, “Especially with the saloon so close at hand.”

He winked at her before closing the door behind him. Shortly after he left, two men in hotel vests brought a small bathtub to her room, making several trips to fill it. A maid brought her the dressing gown and a fresh chemise, as well as a collection of soap and scented bath salts that she told Rose “Mr. Lafontaine had sent over from the general store” and “wasn’t he a generous young man” in a tone of gentle envy. She took Rose’s dress and undergarments to be cleaned and pressed, telling her they would be ready in the morning. 

A more suspicious mind, thought Rose after the maid left, might think that taking my clothes for cleaning could serve to keep me more effectively penned in my room. She pondered her fiance’s motives, wondering if he had caught more than she guessed of the interaction between herself and Cortez. Or perhaps Jasper just didn’t want her making her way to the saloon at an inauspicious moment. She chose to believe the latter, as it made better justification for her plans tonight than the former.

The bath, when she lowered herself into it, brought goose pimples to her fair freckled skin and made her nipples into taut buds, and it felt glorious after the hot day. It was not a large enough bath for her to lower her entire body into, but it was more than sufficient to wash the sweat and dust from her body and hair. As she leaned against the tub’s lukewarm metal wall, she considered Cortez. 

She did not have to fulfill the bargain he offered her--she was not foolish enough to think that a chaste kiss upon the cheek was all that would happen if she went to him. The gelding was a wonderful horse, but was he worth… what? Breaking the unspoken vows of affiancement with Jasper? And what were the codiciles of that contract? She knew that, as the woman, she was expected to bring her maidenhead to the marital bed, like some sort of pagan offering of blood, while Jasper was certainly not under the same virginal burden, and the knowledge of the inequality of their freedoms made her angry. 

Her anger seemed disproportionate to her for a moment, until she realized that the impetus of her wanting was not the horse, but the man. She wanted Cortez, and wanting him was a far greater sin than the simple desire to own a beautiful, useful creature. Rose drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them to herself. 

*********

She stayed in her room till the evening and did not leave until the men had emptied the tub and taken it away and the maid brought her a dinner of fruit, crackers, and cheese. She ordered a bottle of champagne with her dinner and drank half of it before she felt fortified enough to wrap the dressing gown over her chemise and go to the door of her room. She did not listen for footsteps outside her door, or the voices of hotel occupants, she just opened the door and stepped out, half hoping someone might see her and, by seeing her, force her to abandon her course. But no one was in the hallway, or entered the hallway, as she walked towards Cortez’s room.

Her stomach took lazy turns in her abdomen as she knocked on his door and said softly, “Cortez?”

His room smelled of cigar smoke when he opened the door. She was barefoot, and the floor, though it did not creak under her slight weight, was cool and rough. Her hair fell in the loose, deep scarlet waves that it had dried into after her bath. She watched him take her in, his lips parted, his eyes riveted, and she felt powerful. 

“I came to pay you for my horse,” she said. 

Cortez wore a only a waistshirt, open at the neck, and dark pants of a heavy rich material. His gun belt hung from the chair by the small table. When he approached her, it was with his hands slightly raised, palms outward, as one might approach a fractious young horse. When he came close enough for Rose to feel the heat of him, he said, “I take this kiss because it’s owed to me, Miss Montgomery, and then I will step away. Anything else that happens, if you come to me after I step away, happens because we both want it. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” she said in a clear voice.

Then he kissed her.

It was as like Jasper’s kisses as a tiger is to a tabby cat. His lips were very full for a man, and their softness among the roughness of his beard first teased her own lips then abrased them. He nipped her bottom lip, and, when she gasped, he pushed his tongue into her mouth and found her tongue. Rose felt him pull her close, one arm wrapping around the small of her back and the other going to her hair, weaving his fingers through it to cup the back of her head. He pushed his groin against her, letting her feel the evidence of his arousal, and, once again, she felt powerful.

Then he dropped his arms from her and stepped away. She made a desperately feral sound of disappointment that made his wicked half smile appear, even though the effort of withdrawing from her was apparent upon his face as well. She waited only a half breath more before she flung herself toward him.

He caught her, growling something incoherent and dipping his face to her neck, where he kissed and sucked, his beard chafing her sensitive skin and making her almost wild as he tugged the dressing gown from her then pushed her away to pull the chemise over her head. 

“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, his eyes once again lighting pulses of desire along her nerves as he stared at her. He asked, “Have you done this before?”

She raised her chin, “No.”

She was confused when he groaned and said, “You will be the death of me, Rose Montgomery.”

He unbuttoned his shirt, watching her as he did it, and casually hung it over the back of the chair, next to his gun belt. Rose took in the pale scars on his back and the way different muscles went taut and relaxed beneath his skin, making new geographies with every movement. Coarse silver and gold hairs on his chest tapered to a line that traveled down his stomach and disappeared into his trousers. Rose swallowed as he came to her and lifted her against him. She felt his swollen cock trapped behind the fabric of his clothing.

The bed settled beneath their weight with metallic groans as he laid her on it. He kissed her again while her hands explored his body, clutching at his back and hips, then pushing down into his trousers to feel the warm silkiness of his cock. He caught her hands and murmured, “Not yet.” 

When his mouth fastened on her nipple, his tongue circling and lips gently sucking, her hands were suddenly preoccupied with clutching the bedding as she focused on sensations his mouth elicited from her body. He gave her other nipple equal attention, and she moaned, her breaths now coming in quick inhales and gasping exhales. Her body throbbed for him, and without even realizing it, she had spread her legs and tilted her hips in an angle of accommodation that every woman’s body knows by instinct.

Instead of pulling off his trousers, he kissed and nibbled his way down her stomach, past her hips and the mound of her pubis, and the entire path was delicious torture for Rose. When his tongue slid between the lips of her pussy, she looked at him and began to ask, “What are you--?”, but she soon stopped trying to talk at all as he licked and sucked and built a rhythm that pulled her under waves of building pleasure until she felt any more might drown her. Cortez seemed to be able to sense this. When she cried out, “Oh my god,” as the final wave took her and her hips bucked, he held her in place while she tried to wriggle away because his mouth was still on her, and she was so sensitive down there that it nearly drove her mad.

Then he was liberating himself from the last of his clothing, not draping his pants over a chair but flinging them away, so that he could position himself over her, holding his weight on his arms. Rose, still full of the remnants of her own pleasure, pulled Cortez’s face down for a kiss that tasted more of her than him as she felt him shift so that he could grasp his cock and slide the head against her pussy once, twice, then she shifted her hips so his head found her slick opening. He groaned, very slowly pushing his cock into her, watching her face as she closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of sudden fullness inside of her where she had never felt it before. 

“You feel so good,” Cortez said in a husky voice. “I am afraid that this first time will not last so long as I had intended it should.”

She opened her eyes, green flecked with grey, and said, “Fuck me, Cortez. Now.”

He dropped his head onto her shoulder, nuzzling his face into her neck. She felt the rumble of his chuckle before he said, “Yes, ma’am,” and pushed all of his cock into her then slowly began to move inside of her, his weight held on his forearms on either side of Rose. She met his slow thrusts with a matching lift of her hips, a small cry escaping her with each push. As his pace increased, she felt echoes of her pleasure rising from the slick friction within her. Cortez’s breaths came hard and fast. 

Abruptly, he sat back, his cock coming out of her as he shifted positions. She gasped when he pulled her toward him and used her legs to flip her onto her stomach. He straddled her thighs then leaned forward, pushing his cock into her from behind, making her moan as her pussy throbbed at the return of the fullness of him. Underneath them, the bed springs sang in offkey squeaks as Cortez began to thrust with quick, deep strokes. Rose felt her pleasure beginning to peak again, and she bit her lip, pressing her face into the thick duvet as she tried to muffle herself.

As she came again, Cortez gave several hard thrusts, as if he were trying to bury as much of himself in her as he could, and cried out. She felt him lean his forehead into her back then shift to bite her lightly on the shoulder, and it made her think of a stallion covering a mare. She giggled at the uncouthness of the thought.

He slowly began to pull himself out of her. She made a sound of protest and squeezed her inner muscles down below.

“God above, woman,” Cortez cursed, and she relented. He sighed and rolled to lie next to her on his back, sweat beading his skin. 

“So what now?” she asked, resting her chin on her fist to study him. His eyes, which had drifted closed, cracked open to look at her.

“That depends upon you,” he said after a moment. “I don’t know the circumstances by which you came to have a room here at the Saint, but I am happy to keep you here in my bed for as long as you wish to stay.”

“I would be missed,” she said, picking at a loose thread on the duvet, “But not for a few hours yet, if a man of your age has the stamina to entertain a woman of mine.”

“I believe you just called me old.” His eyes no longer looked so sleepy.

“Relatively speaking, of course. I’m sure there are many measures by which you could be considered young: tortoises, sequoias, fossilized skeletons--”

Cortez laughed, “Well, now I know you’re calling me old. You know, you look like pure sugar, but you're two parts vinegar.”

“My mother has been telling me something along those lines my whole life,” Rose said with a wry cast to her voice.

Cortez leaned toward her and kissed her shoulder then gave her his wicked smile, “I’ll do my best to entertain you for the next few hours, Miss Montgomery.”

**********


End file.
